


so devoted to you (it scares me)

by JustGail



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst, Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Developing a Conscience, Emotionally Constipated Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Friends With Benefits, I'm Bad At Summaries, Idiots in Love, Light Dom/sub, Multi, Non-Binary Jaskier, Oral Sex, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Personal Growth, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sort of. It's complicated, Sub Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Yes you read that right. Fuck your stereotypes Yennefer's allowed to be an idiot too, a night out with the lads but the lads are just geralt and renfri, for geraskier - past, it isn't cheating tho!!!, perceived cheating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:06:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28115883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustGail/pseuds/JustGail
Summary: Yennefer is happy with Geralt. Really, she is.Jaskier pines for a relationship that never was.Geralt just wants everyone to get along.Or: three idiots fall in love. Shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Renfri | Shrike, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 41
Kudos: 82





	1. The Inevitability of Eventuality

**Author's Note:**

> So here I am again, writing a fic even though there's so many other things I should be doing. But non-binary Jaskier in a trio with Geralt and Yennefer has been living rent-free in my mind for months now, and I just had to write it.  
> Like _when the hand you wanna hold is a weapon (and you're nothing but skin)_ , this one teeters on the edge between mature and explicit, but this errs more towards nsfw than mature, so I'm playing it safe with the rating, and who knows, maybe there'll be outright smut eventually.  
>    
> Title from _I Go Crazy_ by Orla Gartland.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire first conversation is basically lifted from _The Last Wish _, and I regret nothing.__

“I don’t get it,” Yennefer told him flat-out.

They were at Triss’s housewarming party, although it was already starting to calm down and clear out. Jaskier was sat upside down in the middle of the couch with their head on the ground, playing the guitar they’d brought with them. They were wearing the gaudiest outfit Yennefer had ever seen – it had sequins and neon colors and showed considerably more skin than was probably wise considering the season.

Geralt was wearing black on black, like usual.

“What don’t you get?” he asked, leaning against the wall with his half-empty beer bottle. Jaskier, of course, had made themself a cocktail, somehow. It looked good. Yennefer almost wanted one.

“The two of you are polar opposites,” she said. “I mean, just look at them. They’re loud in every way possible. And you’re…”

“Not,” Geralt guessed dryly.

Yennefer shrugged. “What? It’s true.”

Geralt shrugged too, sipping from the bottle. “Opposites attract,” he says.

“Obviously,” Yennefer said wryly. “I think they’ve seen you naked more than I have.”

Geralt _hmm_ ’d in a way that most likely meant, _probably_.

That didn’t make Yennefer feel better, considering Geralt was _her_ boyfriend.

And yes, Jaskier had come first. And they had had some kind of on-and-off friends-with-benefits situation which worked for them, somehow.

Geralt had described it to her when they met in that awkward way of his:

“When we have somebody, we’re off,” he’d said. “And when we’re not, we eventually find our way to each other. When one of us finds somebody again, it’s over again. Don’t overthink it.”

Yennefer, of course, spent quite a long time overthinking it. She was still overthinking it. The inevitability of eventuality.

But at the end of the night, she went home with Geralt. So, that was it, right? Jaskier was nothing more than Geralt’s slightly annoying best friend.

Jaskier stopped playing the guitar and righted themself, laughing as the blood rushed back down. They waved at Geralt, who grunted and raised his beer in acknowledgement. Yennefer’s wine tasted bitter on her tongue.

“Don’t stop,” Yennefer panted.

Geralt raised his head and chuckled, warm and deep. “Wasn’t going to,” he teased, “until you said otherwise.”

“Fuck you,” she said, and pushed his head back between her thighs, keeping her hand in his hair. He went willingly, and, oh, he really was incredibly good at this. “Fuck, you’re – “ she began, attempting to repeat the sentiment out loud, but was interrupted by him doing something particularly interesting with his tongue, and then all at once she was climaxing.

She let go of Geralt’s hair, who joined her on the bed, put his head on her stomach. She mindlessly played with his hair and said, casually, “What are you thinking about?”

“Mm,” he said, eyes fluttering closed. “You.”

She shoved at him playfully. “Liar.”

He sighed, rolled off her to stare at the ceiling. “Do you have plans for tomorrow?” he deflected.

“That’s a cop-out,” she accused, but let it go anyway. “I’m meeting with a client to discuss his case. Dinner after?”

“Can’t,” Geralt said, clearly on the verge of falling asleep, holding his eyes open for as long as he can. “Plans with Jask. They’ve been trying to drag me to this show, can’t bail on them again.”

Yennefer swallowed around her words. “Turn off the lights, please.”

Yennefer’s phone buzzed – a message from Triss. All it said was: _Omg_ , followed by a link. To a _tiktok_. Yennefer contemplated not opening it, but Triss rarely if ever sent her anything frivolous. If it was from Renfri or, God forbid, Jaskier, she would’ve ignored it. But she was on break, sitting alone, in her office, eating lunch. She could open it.

Besides, she was curious.

She clicked on the link.

The video was clearly popular – it had over six hundred thousand likes. It was short, too. A dimly lit person was playing the guitar and singing, a beautiful voice crooning something she didn’t recognize, although it was clearly a love song.

It was beautiful, sure, but Yennefer was still confused as to why Triss sent her the video. Until the person stopped singing, turned towards the camera, said, “So, yeah,” and winked.

Oh shit.

 ** _Yen (12:05):_** _Where did you even find this?_

**_Triss (12:08):_ ** _Holy crap, right?_

Well.

Well, it’s not like she didn’t know that Jaskier was a singer. That they wanted to be a professional musician. She’d even heard them sing karaoke a few times, and it was… it was good. But this was something else.

She watched it again.

**_Yen (12:11):_ ** _Who else has seen this?_

**_Triss (12:15):_ ** _Besides the entire world? It went viral, that’s how Renfri found it. I think she’s going to forward it to Geralt too, but you know how he is with his phone._

**_Yen (12:16):_ ** _I do._

**_Yennefer (19:55):_ ** _Congratulations._

**_Jaskier (20:14):_ ** _tnx. what for?_

**_Yennefer (20:22):_ ** _[tiktok link attached]_

**_Jaskier (20:23):_ ** _[shock emoji, blushing emoji]_

**_Jaskier (20:23):_ ** _where did u even find this!!!!!!_

**_Yennefer (20:30):_ ** _Renfri sent it to Triss._

**_Yennefer (20:37):_ ** _It’s good._

**_Jaskier (20:39):_ ** _[star eyes emoji]_

“So, Jaskier,” Yennefer said the next evening, leaning against the kitchen counter near Geralt, who was cooking. Well, boiling some pasta and heating up tomato sauce. But it looked good anyway.

Geralt hummed in lieu of an answer.

Yennefer took that as a sign to continue. “They’re, well, a genuinely good singer.”

Geralt quirked an eyebrow at her. “You’ve heard them sing. They’ve dragged us to karaoke at least three times.”

“Yeah, but…” Yennefer hesitated. “Didn’t you see it?”

“See what?”

Yennefer rolled her eyes. “Give me your phone,” she said, and he handed it to her without complaint, like she knew he would. She unlocked his phone. Right there, in recent messages, Renfri had forwarded it to him. “Do you even look at your messages?”

“You know I do,” he reminded her, which, to be fair, she did. The two of them did text. But…

“So you just didn’t look at your phone today from, what, nine o’clock this morning?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember. It was busy today. What is it?” She clicked the link and handed the phone back to Geralt, who watched it silently. When it was over, he closed his phone and put it back in his pocket. “Hmm.”

“ _Hmm_ ,” she repeated, mockingly.

“You knew they were a musician,” Geralt said, gently pushing her away from the sink as he poured the hot water and pasta into the colander. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“A lot of people are musicians,” Yennefer said. “Jaskier is a _phenomenon_. I could – “

Geralt raised an eyebrow at her. “You could what.”

“I could probably get them an agent,” she said. “Someone good. Someone who could actually get them where they should be.”

Geralt wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her close; they were standing nose to nose; she could feel his breath on her lips. “Where is this coming from?” he asked, quietly. “You don’t even like Jaskier all that much.”

There was a lump in her throat. She didn’t know the answer. “They’re important to you,” she said instead. “That means something.”

He kissed her softly, once, twice. “You should talk to them,” he said. “I’m sure they’d be grateful.”

And then he went back to making dinner, and asked her about work, and it was fine.

It was great.

Yennefer didn’t have a chance to talk about Jaskier about her idea for quite a while. She wasn’t avoiding it, genuinely; her caseload was immense, and there was a reason she was as well paid as she was, and it wasn’t because she slacked off when things got hard. She barely had time for Geralt, let alone any of her friends, let alone any of _Geralt’s_ friends.

Because Jaskier was definitely Geralt’s friend. They only ever spent time together in a group setting, usually with Geralt mediating between them. Yennefer wasn’t insecure, or jealous, or anything ridiculous like that. But sometimes she wondered; what it was like to have known Geralt that long; to have his trust for that long; to be _his_ for that long. And, yes, there was a part of her that simply did not like Jaskier for who they were, the way their brashness and sweetness coexisted and contrasted, their bombastic paradoxical _existence_. It was irritating.

She almost understood the appeal.

But when weeks passed and Geralt’s schedule and hers didn’t align even when she _did_ have a break, she decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. Sure, she didn’t particularly like Jaskier. But that didn’t mean she hated them, or wished ill on them. And besides, this was her own idea.

“So,” Jaskier said, putting down the menu in the café across the street from Yennefer’s firm. Jaskier had agreed to meet her during her lunch break, which was good, because if things got awkward, she could just head back to work and forget she had ever had this terrible, terrible idea. “What did you want to talk about? Is something wrong with Geralt I don’t know about?”

They said this nonchalantly, as if the thought didn’t bother them whatsoever. Yennefer didn’t know what to make of this, and she hated that so much. For someone who seemed to wear every emotion they ever had on their sleeve, they could be outright unreadable at times.

Another paradox.

“I wanted to talk about you, actually,” she said. And then, “I think I’ll get the tuna salad. Do you know what you want?”

“Uh,” Jaskier said.

She barely suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “I need to eat,” she reminded them, “so we need to order food. Then we’ll talk.”

They huffed but acquiesced, and when the waitress came over, they ordered an ice coffee and nothing else. Clichéd to the end. Yennefer ordered the tuna salad and coffee.

“Okay then,” Jaskier said. “Now that we’ve ordered, will you tell me what the fuck I’m doing here?”

“I saw your tiktok,” Yennefer said.

“I know,” Jaskier said. “We talked about it. It was like, three weeks ago. You haven’t forgotten already, have you?”

This time Yennefer did roll her eyes. “No, I haven’t. Which is why I want to put you in contact with an agent.”

“An agent,” Jaskier said skeptically.

“An agent,” Yennefer repeated. “I know one I trust and who I think would work well with you. Her name is Essi Daven, and she seemed excited when I sent her your video. At the very least you should meet with her. Ah, thank you,” she said to the waitress who had returned with their drinks.

Jaskier also thanked the waitress, immediately drinking a great deal of the ice coffee. Yennefer glanced out the nearby window at the miserable weather, the dark clouds and strong winds.

_Cliché._

“I guess I’m just surprised, is all,” Jaskier said as they put down their glass. “Since I was under the impression you dislike me up until two seconds ago.”

“I don’t dislike you,” Yennefer said. “I just... don’t like you that much.”

“That makes no sense,” Jaskier pointed out. Yennefer elected to ignore them.

“Anyway,” she continued, “that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize talent. Or that I think you don’t deserve at least a chance at success. And Essi could do that for you.”

“Right.” Jaskier seemed to be deep in thought, which was honestly somewhat unsettling. “I suppose… yeah, that sounds good.”

Yennefer felt immense relief, and immediately scowled, because there was no reason to feel relief. She hadn’t been nervous in the first place. “It’s nothing.”

“No,” Jaskier said, “it’s something. And I appreciate it.”

Whatever it was that was simmering in her gut, she hated it.

“You’re welcome,” she said, sipping her coffee, and forwarded him Essi’s contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I am writing this with absolutely no idea where it's going to go. All I know is I love these idiots and I want them to get together, goddamn it.
> 
> I'm going to continue my unintended tradition of rec'ing witcher fics you might enjoy if you read this one, one at the end of each chapter, because my best friend suggested it and honestly it's a pretty cool idea.  
> [other things i'll never be](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829722/chapters/62749288) is a fantastic fic where all three of these idiots are trans, and it may or may not have made me cry several times. This fic is absolutely nothing like it, but it's really good, so please do go read it.  
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please do leave a kudos and a comment.  
> Love y'all,  
> JustGail


	2. Too Good To Be True

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What am I doing. I should be learning python. But no. The moment I started putting these idiots on the page I couldn't stop it. So here's two thousand words of Jaskier being an idiot over Geralt and Yennefer both.  
> Also, I actually wrote a few hundred words in folklore today as well, so I can confirm that's still going to be updated. Probably.  
> I'm really not good at this.  
> The summary of the fic will be updated soon, probably, cause it's utter shit, but if I've learned anything in the past year of basically living and breathing this fandom, it's that I am really, really bad at summaries.  
> Enjoy.

“Can we talk?” Geralt had asked, all those months ago.

Two years, actually. It was coming up on two years. Jaskier didn’t really know how to deal with that.

They’d spent a pleasant evening together. Gone out for a platonic dinner and an even more platonic movie, and then came back to their shared apartment to have some really fantastic sex. In fact, Jaskier was still basking in the afterglow only minutes before, hearing the shower running through their ridiculously thin walls. It was lucky that as whole they had very little need for privacy, since they could barely afford their two-bedroom as it was, let alone a place more insulated.

Jaskier was intimately aware of everything Geralt was, and vice versa.

But all things come to an end.

“Yeah,” Jaskier said, pretending they didn’t know what this was about, that they didn’t know what Geralt was about to say.

Jaskier didn’t _do_ monogamy, as a general rule, but Geralt did. So inevitably, this _thing_ the two of them had ended, and one day, it would end for good. Jaskier had attempted to make piece with that for… a very long time now.

They had failed.

“It’s about Yennefer,” Geralt said, still standing in the doorway in nothing but his underwear. He really was a sight. Jaskier couldn’t remember a time they didn’t want to lick the sweat off his collarbone.

Jaskier sighed and flung their arm over their face, faux-dramatically, as if they were exaggerating. Mostly, it was to hide their eyes from Geralt’s knowing gaze. “I figured,” they mumbled into the crook of their arm. “It’s been coming for a while. You finally ask her out?”

Jaskier could hear Geralt shifting, could hear his hesitant steps towards the bed. “She asked me, actually.”

“And did you tell her about us?” Jaskier said. Generally, they didn’t care about the answer one way or another, because this was _theirs_ , and Geralt only shared it when he felt that it was important, and Jaskier trusted Geralt to know what was important. They only cared so they knew how to act around Geralt and his new significant other.

Still, it stung when he said, “Yes.” Because that meant that he was really, really serious about Yennefer. And Jaskier didn’t really know how to feel about that.

“Okay,” Jaskier said. “So I’m assuming that – “ They swallowed. “That we’re off?”

Geralt gently pulled Jaskier’s arm off their eyes, and Jaskier did not resist. “Yes,” he said gently. “You said you knew this was coming.”

“I did,” they confirmed. “And I’m happy for you.”

Geralt’s eyes shone in a way they hadn’t in a long time when he said, “Thank you, Jaskier.”

(As a rule, Jaskier didn’t _do_ monogamy.

But they probably would, for Geralt.)

Jaskier never really knew how they felt about Yennefer. She clearly made Geralt happy, and they couldn’t have it in their heart to begrudge that. But the longer the two of them were together, the harder it was for Geralt to find _time_ for Jaskier, especially as they had to work around Yennefer’s busy schedule at the firm and Jaskier’s erratic schedule as a performer/music tutor/social media “influencer”, despite how much they hated the term. Really, the only one of the three of them with any sort of set schedule was Geralt’s job at the barn, but that required him to wake up incredibly early on some days, which ruled out any late night activities the night before, which was about three times a week.

Also, Yennefer clearly disliked them, and Jaskier wasn’t even particularly sure _why_.

Jealousy didn’t seem right, because Yennefer seemed to Jaskier to be too self-assured to even feel jealousy. And Jaskier couldn’t remember doing anything in particular to offend her, although they’d been known to do that unknowingly sometimes.

Really, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter all that much. Jaskier only saw her during group hangouts, when they could easily have Geralt in between them or talk to someone else if applicable, and they were okay with that, overall. They didn’t have a good grasp on Yennefer, but they also didn’t _need_ to. So. Yeah. That was fine.

Anyway, this just made it all the more surprising when Yennefer not only complimented their song – which they were already pretty shocked about – but also that she offered to _help them with their music career_.

And well, even if this was somehow mean spirited and wouldn’t work out, what the fuck did they have to lose? They already had a fanbase that would most likely stick with them through thick and thin, for the most part. So either this manager – this _Essi Daven_ – could help grow their career, or they wouldn’t, and that would be that.

All this to say, this is how Jaskier ended up wearing their least offensive casual outfit in an office on the twelfth floor of a very impressive high rise with lots of windows that absolutely did _not_ give Jaskier vertigo on a Monday morning when they would usually be very much asleep, waiting for an interview that wasn’t really an interview, and also they weren’t one hundred percent sure who was being interviewed, anyway.

“She’ll be right with you,” the secretary said, and oh yeah, this agent had a _secretary_ , because that’s the kind of office this was.

It vaguely occurred to Jaskier that managers probably expected to be paid. Jaskier was making decent money off their YouTube account, but they didn’t know how much a manager this fancy would cost. Maybe they couldn’t afford it.

Jaskier made the conscious choice not to worry about it, or they would probably go insane.

“You can go in now,” the secretary said, and Jaskier was not at all sure how much time had passed between _She’ll be right with you_ and this, but frankly they had bigger things to worry about and therefore ignore, so, somewhat numbly, they walked into Essi Daven’s ridiculously large office and sat down in the rather comfortable chair in front of her desk.

And then the strangest thing happened. Jaskier was… fine. They had a pleasant conversation. Essi – she insisted they call her Essi, rather than anything more formal – told them she had watched hours’ worth of content from Jaskier’s YouTube channel and insisted she'd be _honored_ to represent them. She also explained the way she was paid – she took no money from Jaskier themself, but rather a certain percentage from any money they made through ventures Essi arranged for them, such as – fucking hell – a _record deal_. And Jaskier found themself _enjoying Essi’s company_. They shared not only their taste in music, but also literature, and had even gone to the same college, although Essi was about five years older than Jaskier.

Essi gave Jaskier a contract, but insisted they not sign it until they read the whole thing over. “Call me back in a few days,” she said. “If you’re in – and I really hope you are – then you’ll come in and sign it and we can start working together.”

While Jaskier was sure that Essi meant well by giving them the contract, they already knew that their answer was going to be yes.

It was probably too good to be true.

Jaskier couldn’t give a damn.

“I have an _agent_ ,” Jaskier said not a week later, their head in Geralt’s lap as the both of them ignored the movie playing on the TV in Geralt and Yennefer’s apartment.

Geralt chuckled in that way of his, deep and throaty and unfairly attractive, since Jaskier couldn’t kiss him, no matter how much they wanted to. “I know,” he said, “you’ve only said so five times since you walked in.”

“It’s still sinking in,” Jaskier said. “You can’t blame me. It’s _exciting_.”

“It is,” Geralt agreed. “And I’m incredibly happy for you. Which is why I’m paying for pizza tonight. Even though you’ll soon be much, much richer than me,” he teased, and gently swept Jaskier’s hair from their face.

Another reason to appreciate Yennefer – there was no denying that Geralt was much, much more talkative now than he’d been before he met her. Even when they weren’t feeling the pleasant buzz of a small but all-in-all significant amount of alcohol in their systems.

The alcohol was however probably entirely to blame for the physical affection. Not that Jaskier minded at all.

God, what Jaskier would give to grab the palm of Geralt’s hand and press a kiss into it. Instead, they reached for Geralt’s hair and played with it for a bit. He really had gorgeous fucking hair.

“Your hair is fucking gorgeous,” Jaskier told him.

Geralt swallowed, and _looked_ at Jaskier in a way they didn’t really understand. Before Jaskier could ask, though, the doorbell rang.

“Probably the pizza,” he said roughly, and pushed Jaskier out of the way. Not aggressively, but not particularly gently, either. Jaskier leaned back against the couch and glanced at the movie. Ryan Reynolds was proposing to Sandra Bullock. It was probably the climax of the movie.

They turned the TV off.

“ _Ugh_ ,” Jaskier said emphatically as they woke up hungover in Geralt and Yennefer’s guest room. It was a nice guest room. Jaskier was far too hungover to appreciate it.

They could hear Geralt and Yennefer talking in the kitchen, although the sound was too muffled for them to understand the specific words.

They sounded happy.

Jaskier stumbled into the bathroom and brushed their teeth with the toothbrush that had been theirs for – well, close to a year now, since Geralt had moved in with Yennefer. They stayed over too often not to have one.

They washed their face, glancing at their clearly hungover face, and made their way to the kitchen.

“Good morning!” Yennefer said, uncharacteristically energetic, and if Jaskier had ever had a doubt that Yennefer disliked them, this moment solidified that knowledge in their brain.

“Blchh,” came the eloquent answer. Yennefer smirked, but at least she didn’t say anything before Geralt wordlessly put a cup of coffee in front of Jaskier. “Thank fuck,” they groaned appreciatively, and downed the whole thing in five seconds flat.

“Pancakes?” Geralt grunted.

Jaskier made a face. “No thanks,” they said. “I think I’ma head home. Maybe puke my guts out and take a _really_ long nap.”

Geralt was not known for his verbosity, let alone before ten am, so Jaskier was not surprised to hear nothing more than a hum goodbye. What they _were_ surprise by was Yennefer saying “I’ll walk you out,” all casual, as if this was a regular occurrence rather than a bizarre turn of events. Still. Yennefer followed them, and Jaskier did not object. Mostly because they didn’t have the energy to, but same difference, right?

Yennefer followed them out of the building, too. Then she stood there, as if waiting for Jaskier to say something. She didn’t look awkward, because Yennefer never looked awkward. But it certainly _was_ awkward for Jaskier, as they were not at all sure what to say.

To be fair, Jaskier should probably thank her for putting them in touch with Essi.

They just weren’t a hundred percent sure how to do so.

Luckily, Yennefer started talking before they could start talking and probably put their foot in their mouth.

“So how did it go with Essi?”

“Uh,” Jaskier said.

She raised an eyebrow in response.

Sometimes Jaskier really, really understood why Geralt had left them for this woman.

“It went well,” they said. “I signed. You probably know that. She’s… I get along with her ridiculously well. Thank you. For putting us in touch.”

“You’re welcome,” Yennefer responded. And before Jaskier could say anything else, she said, “Have a good day,” and walked back into the apartment building.

Jaskier could do nothing but stare at her in shock.

She had never, once, in the entire two-and-some years they had known each other, ever said to Jaskier something as pedestrian and _polite_ as “have a good day”.

What the _fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's rec is [roll for seductions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24154027/chapters/58163077), which features non binary Jaskier and dungeons and dragons and is a really fun read with only minimal angst!  
> I really hope y'all enjoyed this chapter and plan to stay along for the ride. No, I still have no idea where this is going. But next chapter is definitely-maybe going to be from Geralt's POV, so that should be fun.  
> Kudos and comments are the reason I survive.  
> Love,  
> JustGail


	3. No Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we all have sex dreams about our friends we definitely don’t have feelings for and then decide not to tell our partners about, right?  
> … right?  
> anyway Geralt's going to come to his senses before anybody else in this fic because he can be emotionally mature if he wants to
> 
> we’re here EARNING OUR E RATING bayBEE

Geralt was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, because Jaskier was driving their cock into him in a way they hadn’t in a very, very long time, and it was familiar in the way that dreams often were, and strangely disjointed, also in the way dreams often were.

He couldn’t quite _feel_ Jaskier’s cock; it was more that he knew it was there, and he knew he should probably be able to feel every bit of it, every thrust and lick and bite and stretch, but it was a dream, so as a result it was all rather abstract knowledge.

“Are you good?” Jaskier asked, and Geralt didn’t know what to say in response, so instead he just kissed them, and he could almost feel that. “I know,” they said gently, wiping the tears off his face (and when had he started crying?), “I know. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Geralt said, his voice raspy and raw – from the crying, most likely. “I – “

“What, love?” Jaskier said, and fuck if that didn’t hurt.

“I miss you,” he confessed, punched out of him as Jaskier hit that spot inside of him – and oh, he definitely felt that. “All of the time.”

“I’m right here, darling,” they said, and Geralt was coming, fuck, he was coming so hard –

Geralt woke up to a mess in his pajama pants, which was fucking embarrassing.

Yennefer hadn’t woken up yet, and he decided to take a shower.

Shortly after he left the shower, Yennefer joined him in the kitchen. She kissed him on the cheek and set to making coffee – kindly making enough for three, which was thoughtful of her. Jaskier had ended up drinking quite a lot last night in celebration, and would probably wake up miserable. He was mixing batter for pancakes. He liked having them on Saturdays.

“Are we out of maple syrup?” Yennefer asked, closing the cupboard they used to keep it.

“Fridge,” Geralt answered gruffly. “Ants.”

“Ah,” Yennefer said, smiling. She kissed his shoulder. “Very thoughtful of you, thank you.”

He didn’t know what it was about that moment that punched all of the air out of his lungs, but he couldn’t help it. He loved her so, so much. He pulled her close and kissed her, deep and slow and as sweetly as he could.

“What was that for?” she whispered as they finally broke apart.

He had no words for her.

Thank fuck for Jaskier ambling into the kitchen when they did.

“What was that about?” he asked as he handed her a plate of pancakes, already buttered and drowning syrup, the way she liked.

“I don’t know what you mean?” Yennefer said innocently, which was offset by the ferocious way she set upon the pancakes. Geralt barely suppressed a snort.

“Jaskier,” he clarified, joining her with his own plate.

She didn’t look at him. “Just showing them out,” she said. “You’re not complaining that I was nice to them, are you?”

“Hmm,” Geralt said, and decided to let the matter drop.

**_Jaskier (16:03):_ ** _pls pls pls send pics of roach_

**_Jaskier (16:04):_ ** _i feel like im gonna die_

**_Geralt (16:11):_ ** _How will pictures of Roach help?_

**_Jaskier (16:13):_ ** _do nOT question the healing properties of quality horse pictures_

**_Geralt (16:15):_ ** _[blurry picture of Roach from up close] feel better_

**_Renfri (19:20):_ ** _I’m taking you out tonight_

**_Renfri (19:20):_ ** _you do **not** have a choice_

**_Renfri (19:21):_ ** _r &t, 20:30_

**_Renfri (19:44):_ ** _yen told me you’re already home so take a shower. I will not have you smell of horse_

**_Geralt (20:21):_ ** _on my way_

“Why am I here?” Geralt asked as they settled in the back with their drinks.

Renfri shrugged. “Honestly? Haven’t seen you for fucking _ever_ , man,” she said. “I’m worried about you. I love Yen and Jaskier both, but the last time I saw you without one of them was…” She tilted her head, as if thinking. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve seen you one-on-one in like, a year. So yeah.” She gestured at the table. “Drinks.”

Geralt twitched. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a terrible friend.”

“It’s fine.” She waved his concern away. “Let’s just get fucking sloshed.”

Two hours later, she was practically in his lap. He usually didn’t like people touching him for that long, but with Renfri it was fine. He’d known her for so long, and he trusted her implicitly.

“I need you to know,” she told him, much too serious, “that – that – “ She frowned. “I lost the thread.”

He laughed. “You’re drunk.”

“ _You’re_ drunk,” she accused, but didn’t deny it. “You know what I haven’t asked you yet?”

“What?” he asked, still amused.

“How _are_ you?” Renfri said. “How weird is that? That I just haven’t asked that? Fuckin’. Anyway. How the fuck are you?”

He swallowed. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to say it, but – “I had a sex dream about Jaskier,” he confessed.

He didn’t know what he expected, how he expected her to react, but laughter was not it.

“Hey,” he protested.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, clutching at her side. She slid off him. “I _knew_ you weren’t over them.”

He frowned at her, raised the beer bottle to his lips. It was empty. He put it back down. “There’s nothing to be over,” he said.

She laughed even harder. “Oh, Geralt. That’s adorable.”

“We used to have sex,” Geralt said, “now we don’t. It’s been a while. They stayed over last night. That’s it.”

“ _Right_ ,” Renfri said, dragging out the word till it sounded like it was several syllables longer than it actually was. “You’re just friends.”

“We are.”

“Geralt, babe,” Renfri said, leaning forward, as if telling him a secret. “A lot of people are capable of having friends with benefits without developing feelings. Fuck, Jaskier is even one of them. But _you_ , my friend, are not.”

He wanted to say something, to deny but he, once again, had no idea how to put together the words to express what he was thinking. “ _Not true_ ,” was all he could muster.

“Yes true,” Renfri said. “And just because you broke it off to be with Yennefer – who is the fucking best, and possibly hottest woman on the fucking planet, so believe me when I say _I understand_ – just because you broke it off, doesn’t mean you’re over them. Which you’re not.” She leaned in even closer. Their foreheads were almost touching, and he remembered guitar-calloused hands reach up to play with his hair. “I’ll be honest with you, yeah?”

He swallowed. Nodded.

“You deserve to be happy,” she said. “So I’m going to tell you something I probably shouldn’t. And I know what I said, just a second ago, about Jaskier being able to separate sex from feelings. You did hear that, yeah?”

“Hmm.”

“Thought so. Well. It’s true, in general. But they’re heads over heels for you, Geralt. Everyone can see it.”

Geralt recoiled as if physically struck. His voice was rougher than expected when he spoke, scraped raw. “No,” he insisted. “They’re _not_.”

“They are,” Renfri said. “And it’s okay if you choose not to do anything about it. But I figured you should know. Might help you do something with those – pesky fucking feelings you have for them.”

He didn’t bother denying his feelings, this time. It wouldn’t help either of them.

“I need another drink,” he said.

The light in the apartment was too bright, so the first thing he did when he stumbled through the front door past two am was to immediately turn it off. He took off his shoes, much more clumsily than he normally would have. Geralt was fully aware of how drunk he was. Much, much drunker than Jaskier had been last night. He would _not_ feel good in the morning. He might even have to call in sick for his afternoon shift. Fuck. He hadn’t called in sick in… years, probably. Shit. Fuck.

“Shit-fuck is probably right,” Yennefer said, and Geralt realized two things at once: one, he had been speaking out loud, and he didn’t know which parts he’d said and which parts he’d thought; two, he hadn’t even noticed Yennefer was in the room until that point, which he would find incredibly embarrassing the next morning, but couldn’t deal with right that second. She rose to meet him as he stumbled on his way to her. “Come on, you big oaf, lean on me, that’s it,” she said, leading him to their bedroom. “Renfri warned me she was going to get you drunk, you know, but I didn’t really realize how effective it would be. God, you must have spent a small fortune. I’m going to set you down on the bed and get you a bucket, alright?” He didn’t get the chance to nod before she had already done both, leaving the room without another word, returning only a few moments later.

“Sorry,” he said, the only word he’d managed to say in… too many minutes, probably. Along with the bucket, she’d brought a wet rag, which she was currently wiping his face with. “’M not sick,” he mumbled.

“No, but you stink of spilled beer and cigarette smoke,” she said. “Strip.”

With some help, he did exactly that. Of all the times he had gotten naked in her present, this was probably the least sexy. She bundled up his clothing and took it out of the room, presumably to throw directly into the washing machine. By the time she came back, he was lying back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Don’t brood so hard,” she told him. “Your face will get stuck that way.”

“No,” he said, but didn’t argue further.

Yennefer joined him on the bed, lying on her back to his right, also staring at the ceiling. “Are you alright?” she asked, much gentler than anything else she’d said to him this evening. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this drunk.”

The alcohol was making him far too honest. “I had a sex dream about Jask,” he told her.

“Oh,” she said, her voice unexpectedly small. He couldn’t bear it.

He turned on his side to face her, but she continued to stare at the ceiling. “I love you,” he said, as sincerely as he could. “You know that. I would do anything for you.”

“I know,” she said. “But you still got drunk over Jaskier.”

He groaned. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. “I love you,” he repeated. “But Renfri made me realize… I don’t want to keep this from you. I don’t want to lie about it.”

“I get it,” she said, and he wished she would just fucking look at him. “You love them, too.”

“Fuck.” She still wasn’t looking at him. He grabbed her hand. “Yen. _Yen_. Please look at me.”

Finally, finally, _finally_ , she did. And her eyes –

“I love you,” he repeated, just to say it once more. “I’m not going to do anything. I didn’t even know.”

“I knew,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at her. He knew she wanted – so much –

“You _can_ , you know,” she said. She was cradling his face in her hands. “Do something.”

He was going to throw up. And not from the alcohol. “You don’t mean that.”

Yennefer’s eyes hardened. “Since when do I say things I don’t mean?” she demanded. “I love you. You love me. I didn’t – “ She swallowed. “I’m sorry,” she continued. “I doubted you. Until right now. But I don’t, now. And I – “ She laughed bitterly. “I almost get it. So… if you want them.”

She leaned forward, slowly, kissed him as gently as he’d kissed her that morning.

“You deserve the world, Geralt. And I know how much trouble you have, going after what you want. Wanting, even. I promised, once, to do it for you,” she reminded him, fiercely. “Let me do it for you now. If you want them. If you want them half as much as I think you want them.” She moved one of her hands from his jaw to his hair, fisted it. He groaned. “You can have them,” she promised.

He kissed her, sloppily, drunkenly, till she laughed and pushed him away, telling him he needed to brush his teeth.

Tomorrow morning, he would wake up fine. He always did. He hadn’t had a hangover in his life. So tomorrow morning, he’d make love to her. As long as she wanted. Less than she deserved.

Right now…

Even if Jaskier didn’t want him back. Even if Jaskier didn’t want him the way he wanted them. It was enough to know that – that Yennefer loved him that much. Loved him enough to _share_.

He went to sleep, and slept like a fucking baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this one. I'm really nervous about it, it was a tough one to write. Let me know how you feel about the new summary, too, because you should really recognize it, because, uh, I might be changing the title of the fic, idk yet.  
> Renfri is the fucking best, I love her so much.  
> Today's rec is [A history of dragons in popular culture](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23264560), also a geraskiefer fic. In this one Jaskier writes a song about Yennefer following the mountain and there's angst and pining and sex and it's great.  
> Hopefully, it might be a while before I update again. I need to work on my scripts for uni over the next month or so and then I have a bunch of papers to write. Knowing myself, however, I'm going to end up procrastinating by writing about these idiots instead.
> 
> I hope you all have a fantastic 2021. Get vaccinated as soon as you can, and stay safe for now.  
> Love,  
> JustGail


	4. The Shape of It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning before you read this: Geralt and Jaskier do not communicate on some pretty important things in this chapter. There is no dubcon, as far as I'm concerned, but I put the explanation in the end notes for those who are worried about it. If you don't want to be spoiled, go on ahead unwarned.  
> Also note, this chapter is much more explicit than anything else I've written so far. I can't believe I said last chapter was earning our E rating.  
> This is probably only going to get hornier and hornier each time.

“Hey,” Jaskier said when they picked up the phone. “What’s up?”

“Jask,” was all he said. Still, Jaskier thought his voice sounded a little strained. They figured he was probably just coming back from a ride – wasn’t this when he usually got off work?

“Geralt,” they responded, somewhat amused. They were sitting in their bedroom; they had a gig in two hours at a venue half an hour away, which meant they were probably not going to leave until at least an hour and forty five minutes had passed. They thought they might scroll through tiktok the entire time.

“Are you still preforming tonight?”

“Yep,” they said. “Two hours till the set is supposed to begin. Are you coming?”

Even through the phone, Jaskier could hear Geralt swallowing. Probably drinking some water; it was important to hydrate after exercise, of course. “Yeah,” he said, voice a little hoarse. “I, uh. Yeah.”

“Great,” Jaskier responded cheerfully. “I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah,” Geralt responded. “Yeah.”

And then he hung up.

Jaskier stared at the phone.

Their best friend was so fucking weird.

They were only about ten minutes late, which was fine, because the place was still filling up and nobody expected them to go on stage on time. This was why they’d made it a habit to always be a little late; they got restless if they had to wait too long, and then there were nerves, and then their set wasn’t as good, and that’s just bad all around.

Essi was in the audience today, although they couldn’t see her in the crowd. She wanted to see them live as often as possible, maybe even record a performance. Jaskier wasn’t really sure how they felt about it. Not the recording, but just… all of it. It was intense. A good sort of intense, though. They just didn’t want Essi to suddenly not like them because their performance was subpar. Can a manager fire you? Or is it called something else?

Why couldn’t they see Essi?

Actually, now that they thought of it, Jaskier couldn’t see Geralt, either.

Finally the manager signaled to Jaskier that they could go on stage. They grabbed their guitar and marched on stage, making an effort to forget any nerves or worries. It was them, the music, and the stage.

“Hey,” they said, “I’m Jaskier. Thank you so much for being here!”

The crowd cheered. Good crowd. That’s good. They could feed off that energy.

“This one is called – “

Essi met them next to the stage as they finally finished their set. It felt like the entire hour had passed by in a blur, but Jaskier was still high on the energy and thrill of a good show.

“Fuck, that was good,” Jaskier said. “That was good, right? That was a good audience.”

“Absolutely,” Essi said. “Listen, we absolutely _have_ to record you more professionally. I’ve seen your YouTube, and it’s good, but we can definitely improve it – “

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, walking up to the stage from the crowded room. He was wearing the black sweatshirt that Jaskier bought him for his birthday three years ago, and as usual, he looked unreasonably good in what should have been the simplest attire known to man.

“Geralt!” Jaskier said, hugging him tight, then immediately pulling back. “Ugh, I’m sorry, I’m probably so sweaty right now.”

“It’s fine,” Geralt said.

“Essi, this is Geralt, my best friend in the whole wide world,” Jaskier said. “Geralt, this is Essi Daven, my new manager.”

Geralt nodded in her direction, and Essi smiled politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yennefer is Geralt’s girlfriend,” Jaskier added. For context. And also because sometimes they needed to be reminded, like when they were full of energy and absolutely willing to spend it on fucking Geralt as hard as he’d let them.

Which was not at all, because of Yennefer.

“Oh,” Essi said, her smile looking a lot more genuine now. “Your girlfriend helped me out of a tight spot last year. And I’m really grateful for her sending Jaskier my way, of course.”

Geralt’s expression looked pained, and Jaskier figured they might as well rescue him. “Essi, can you call me tomorrow about all of this? I really need to let off some steam and I don’t think talking about my YouTube channel is the way to do it.”

“Sure,” Essi said. She leaned in to hug Jaskier, but then presumably remembered they were _incredibly_ sweaty right now, and pulled back. “I’ll call you after lunch. Have fun.”

Jaskier waved at her as she slipped out of the backdoor, then turned back to Geralt. “Thank you for coming,” they said.

“Of course,” Geralt said.

Jaskier could tell there was something on his mind, but knew from experience it would take some effort to get whatever it was out of him. “Come on,” Jaskier said, “let’s get a drink, sit down.”

“Let off some steam?” Geralt teased, raising an eyebrow.

Jaskier wanted to lick it. They really needed to get laid tonight.

Instead, they took Geralt’s hand and started leading them to the bar. Once they got there, however, Geralt leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Actually, I was thinking maybe we could just – go to your place?”

Oh. So whatever it was, it was a _serious_ something on his mind. Jaskier chose not to be worried. “Sure! Just let me get my stuff and I’ll meet you outside?”

“I drove here,” Geralt said. “I’ll pull up front.”

“I have beer,” Jaskier said as they opened the door to their apartment. They still lived in the apartment they used to live in with Geralt; it was never really expensive, and they’ve been making good money off sponsorship deals – enough that they’d been considering discontinuing their tutoring, but not enough that they’d acted on it yet – so they could afford it even after Geralt moved out. It hadn’t really changed all that much, really. Geralt hadn’t taken any furniture when he left, which was fine, because it was all crap that Jaskier would probably throw out any day now, anyway.

Any day now.

“I’m okay, thanks.” Geralt followed Jaskier into the apartment and locked it behind him; he apparently still had his old key on his chain. Geralt didn’t really sleep over, ever, not like Jaskier stayed in his and Yennefer’s apartment, but he had also never returned the key, so this was probably more surprising than it should have been.

“Well, I’m getting a drink,” Jaskier announced, carefully leaning their guitar on the wall next to the TV. Geralt followed them into the kitchen but said nothing. Jaskier’s skin itched all over. Geralt’s silence was not abnormal, but since Jaskier _knew_ there was something he wanted to say, it was… uncomfortable.

Head stuck in the fridge, they asked, “Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

Geralt hummed.

Why did Jaskier even have beer? They didn’t like it. But they also didn’t have any other alcohol that wouldn’t require more than one step to drink, as they had – apparently – completely run out of alcoholic cider. _Note to self. Buy cider._

They grabbed a beer. And a bag of Doritos from the pantry, for good measure.

“Come on,” Jaskier said.

Geralt followed them, once again, this time out of the kitchen and into the living room, towards the sad, sagging couch that they used to –

Ahem. Anyway.

“Movie?”

“Sounds good,” Geralt said as the two of them sat down.

“Any preferences?” Jaskier asked, already knowing the answer, and feeling a little self-congratulatory when Geralt said “anything but action”. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll watch a horse girl movie to match your horse girl soul,” Jaskier said, thumbing through Netflix. They leaned back into the couch, casually popping the beer can open. Their eyes wandered and landed on Geralt, who was sitting up rigidly. “What are you doing?” Jaskier laughed. “Relax, I was just teasing.”

Geralt seemed to let out a heavy breath, and leaned back on the couch, scooching a little closer to Jaskier. “I know.”

They picked a movie, eventually, although it was really mostly Jaskier talking to themself with no input on Geralt’s part – nothing new there – and soon enough the two of them were settled on the couch, Jaskier mindlessly munching on Doritos and paying far more attention to Geralt than the movie, waiting for him to decide to confide in Jaskier.

It happened just as Jaskier was reaching for the last bit of Dorito dust. Geralt glanced over at Jaskier as they licked their fingers, then reached forward to grab the remote and pause the movie.

“Jaskier,” he said, and Jaskier put aside the empty Doritos packet and mostly full beer.

“Geralt,” they said.

And then there was silence, because of course there was.

“Geralt,” Jaskier repeated, somewhat bemused. “Are you going to tell me whatever it is you’ve wanted to tell me all evening, or?”

Geralt started. “How did you know…?”

“That you want to tell me something? Geralt, babe,” Jaskier said, pushing him lightly with his Dorito-dust-free hand, “I’ve known you for, like, a decade. I can tell when you want to tell me something. So. Spit it out.”

“Let me get you a napkin,” Geralt said instead, and he actually started getting up, so Jaskier reached out – with the Dorito-covered hand, oops – and pulled him right back down, much closer than he’d been before. They wiped their hand unceremoniously on their jeans and scooted closer on the couch, so there was almost no space between them.

“What is it,” Jaskier whispered.

Geralt kissed them.

It was like no time had passed, like two years were erased in a flash. Geralt’s lips were searing hot on theirs, pulling and pushing and prodding. Jaskier surged forward and climbed into Geralt’s lap; Geralt welcomed them, pressing his hands into the small of their back in a way that made Jaskier shiver. They melted into the embrace, kissing harder and demanding more. Jaskier sunk their teeth into his bottom lip and Geralt groaned, sounding as if Jaskier had punched all the air from his lungs. _Good_ , they thought, and moved their efforts down towards Geralt’s collarbone, to the spot they had spent the past two years or so fantasizing about, and bit down, hard. Geralt groaned again, and then _whined_ when Jaskier rose from his lap.

Jaskier memorized that sound, because it was the most delicious sounding thing they’d ever heard.

“Come on,” they said, “we’re not doing this here.”

Geralt caught on and willingly followed Jaskier into the bedroom, where they immediately began undressing him, trading a breathtaking kiss for each item of clothing. With Geralt finally bare, it was all Jaskier could do to not immediately sink on their knees and take him in their mouth; their mouth watered at the thought. Instead, the lead Geralt to the bed, still kissing him all the while, and began undressing themself. Geralt tried to help, but Jaskier batted his hands away, leaving him to watch. Jaskier briefly considered making it into a show, but there was no time for it; there was an urgency to this, something Jaskier didn’t want to name but absolutely knew the shape of.

Still:

“Are you sure?” Jaskier asked.

“Yeah,” Geralt said, and Jaskier kissed him again, and they were lost.

Geralt passed them the lube; he must have gotten it from the top drawer of the nightstand while Jaskier was undressing, the same place it had been when they were – well, still doing _this_.

Nope, not thinking about that. Thinking about right now. Thinking about Geralt, panting and hard and desperate in front of them, lying on his back, waiting to be opened.

Maybe they’d make this part slow after all. Pry him open finger by finger, wait until he begged, cried, screamed for Jaskier to fuck him already.

Blink, and they’d done it.

“Please,” Geralt whimpered, and oh, that sound almost broke their heart with how _raw_ it was.

They took mercy on him; quick as they could, they put on a condom and slipped in, both of them moaning at the feeling. Jaskier waited a moment, letting both of them get used to it, but their body remembered what this was like better than their mind ever could, and soon it was more than they could bear to stay still, so they moved.

The sensation was overwhelming. There was nothing like fucking Geralt; Jaskier didn’t know if it was because of the way he was just so pliant, if it was that his body just fit Jaskier’s like a glove, or if it was the way Jaskier felt spilling over into the actual act – probably all three – but either way, it didn’t take long for either of them to approach the edge.

Jaskier spilled while still inside Geralt, kissing him and jerking him off all the while; Geralt followed shortly after, and Jaskier slipped out, swallowing Geralt’s beautiful whine with yet another kiss. “Just a moment,” they promised, “I’ll be right back.”

They cleaned up as quickly as they could and then rejoined Geralt in the bed, kissing the crown of his head. They opened their arms and Geralt immediately wrapped himself around them like a fucking octopus, leaving no room for Jaskier to breathe.

Jaskier decided he didn’t mind when Geralt almost immediately fell asleep.

The lights were still on in the living room.

Jaskier idly played with Geralt’s hair.

And then they acknowledged the shape of it – the thing that had made tonight seem so urgent.

Jaskier had just helped Geralt cheat on Yennefer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers: Jaskier and Geralt have sex, but Geralt does not clarify that he has discussed this with Yennefer, leaving Jaskier with the impression that Geralt has cheated on Yennefer with Jaskier; Jaskier has the actual sex completely willingly.
> 
> \----
> 
> This chapter went through _so many_ rewrites. At first it was a Yennefer chapter, and it took me about 700 words (which is a third of a chapter in this fic) to figure out that wasn't right. The second-to-last draft of it had an extra 500 words that are probably going to move into the next Jaskier chapter, unless the plot takes a very sudden left turn. Which, knowing me, it might.  
> Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the result, and I hope you guys are too.  
> Today's rec is [SummerFrost's Bartending AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647292), my favorite witcher fic, period, it's even on my profile, I am not kidding around here. It's poly but not directly geraskiefer (so far?) - the pairings are currently geralt/jask, geralt/yen, and yen/renfri. If you're reading this and you haven't read SummerFrost's entire library, you are doing yourself a disservice, because SummerFrost is probably one of the most talented writers of our generation, I swear to God.  
> Anyway, I'm going to go avoid working on my uni TV show script. This part of it is due in six days, so obviously I've done nothing at all.  
> To be fair, I've been busy writing near-smut for you guys.  
> I hope you all are having the best 2021 you can possibly be having, considering... everything that's happened in the 10 whole days it's been around.  
> Kudos and comments are what motivates me to finish my schoolwork.  
> Love,  
> JustGail


	5. Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice that I've updated the tags!! We have more sex here, with a touch of sub Geralt cause that's one of my favorite things and this is my fic so I'll write what I want.  
> We're entering a slightly more angsty set of chapters so I added angst to the list of tags, but don't worry, there's going to be a happy ending to all of this.  
> Enjoy!

Jaskier’s had their hands in his hair.

Geralt should probably have been focusing on something else. The cock in his mouth, for example, was very much in the forefront of his mind. The way Jaskier was thrusting forward and the slight burn of stretching his mouth that much wider to take them that much deeper.

But it was the way that Jaskier pulled on his hair that really got him.

“Hnng,” he moaned, the most coherent sound he could make at the moment; luckily, Jaskier took it as the encouragement it was and tugged just a little bit harder, moving Geralt in whatever way pleased them.

Geralt thought he could probably stay right here forever.

It wasn’t only the hair, of course. There was the fact that he was here, with Jaskier, and he had wanted this for so long and hadn’t let himself acknowledge it and now he had it, finally, and it was fucking fantastic.

But the hair-pulling helped.

Jaskier spilled on his tongue and tugged on his hair, subtly telling Geralt to rise; they kissed filthily, and Geralt knew that Jaskier could probably taste themselves, and he wanted to die, just a little.

“Good boy,” Jaskier whispered.

Sometimes Geralt thought of Jaskier and Yennefer both doing this to him – taking their pleasure from him and praising him and the way they both made him feel this way even though he knew he probably didn’t deserve it, definitely didn’t deserve it – sometimes he thought of the way he’d feel if it was all of them together and that feeling in his chest, the one that was happy but painful at the same time, it became so loud it drowned out everything else.

“You okay?” Jaskier asked, and Geralt nodded. “Okay then. Come to bed?”

It had been three weeks since Geralt had let himself want Jaskier again, and it was almost everything he could possibly dream of. He still spent most of his nights with Yennefer – although this was mostly a matter of convenience, as Jaskier’s schedule conflicted with his often and Geralt _lived_ with Yennefer. But it was still fantastic, what they had here.

 _Almost_ everything he could possibly dream of.

And it wasn’t just the fantasies of Yen and Jask and Geralt, all together, because Yennefer and Jaskier barely tolerated one another sometimes, he knew this, knew better than to want it. It wasn’t the sex, which was fucking incredible. The moment they found themselves alone in a room, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

There was something about the way Jaskier was acting, though. The way they talked to him when they weren’t in the same room. The way they acted around him, as though they were lying about something, although Geralt couldn’t figure out what they could possibly be lying about.

“What are you thinking about?” Jaskier murmured, not-quite-dozing but not-quite-awake either.

“You.”

“Liar,” Jaskier teased. Geralt didn’t bother correcting them. So Jaskier kissed the top of Geralt’s head and played with his hair, until they were both fast asleep.

“There’s something wrong with Jaskier,” Geralt told Renfri the next time they went out.

Renfri snorted. “Something’s always wrong with Jaskier,” she said. “They’re a fucking weirdo.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Geralt said. He pushed his beer away. It was too loud in this fucking bar.

Renfri sighed. “Yeah, okay. Tell me about it.”

So Geralt told her, as best he could, about the contrast between the fantastic sex (“Ew, gross,” Renfri said, “I don’t need to know anything about that”) and the awkward distance between them otherwise. “They’re looking through me,” Geralt said, “and I don’t fucking know why.”

“Fuck, Geralt,” Renfri said, swallowing half her beer in one go. “I dunno. I figured once you talked to them about the way you feel they’d be fucking ecstatic. What did they say when you told them?”

“Uh,” Geralt said.

Renfri pointed put down her bottle as slowly as she could. “Geralt,” she said slowly, “please tell me you actually talked to them.”

“Well.” Geralt shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Words – it’s just not my strong suit, okay?”

“Fuck, Geralt,” Renfri said, sounding a little as though she wanted to throttle him. “I am going to murder you in your fucking sleep.”

*

The thing was, right, that as a general rule, Jaskier did not care if someone else decided to cheat. Jaskier was very clear on who they were, and it was not their responsibility if some stranger chose to break an agreement they entered into willingly.

But that’s just it, isn’t it. Geralt isn’t a stranger. Fuck, _Yennefer_ isn’t a stranger.

But the moment Jaskier started, they couldn’t stop. They wanted nothing more than to kiss Geralt again, and again, and again. If they never had sex again and all they got to do was this, forever, Jaskier could probably die happy.

They just wanted to take care of him. That’s all they’d ever wanted, really.

And there was no way that enabling Geralt cheating on Yennefer, who he would probably fucking marry someday, was the way to take care of him.

It’s just… they couldn’t stop.

No, it was worse than that.

They didn’t want to stop.

They wanted him too much, and it would end up hurting all three of them.

“Hey,” Geralt said over the phone. “Can we talk?”

Jaskier’s heart hammered in their chest. “What about?”

“It’s not over-the-phone stuff,” he said. “When are you free?”

Jaskier went over their schedule mentally. They had just seen Geralt a couple of days ago; so far they went at least three days between seeing each other, and they wanted a bit of time for themselves to process what they’d been feeling.

Guilt. It was guilt.

A new and strange and wholly unpleasant feeling.

“Uh,” they said. “I have a meeting with Essi today and I think I’ll probably be exhausted tonight, post classes. I also need to edit a video…”

“Can you do tomorrow? Eight o’clock?”

“Sure,” they said, against their better judgement.

Jaskier had always been terrible at saying no to Geralt.

“So, I’ve been talking to some labels, passing your demo around,” Essi told them. “There’s some interest from a couple of people, but we need to think carefully of who gets what. You know of the whole drama regarding ownership of music, yes?” Jaskier nodded. “Well, it’s a big issue right now, and a lot of labels are wary of signing previously independent artists like yourself as is.”

“I want to own my music,” Jaskier said.

“And I absolutely think that you should,” Essi agreed. “But it’ll be difficult. Very few labels are willing to make this change. So we’re going to shop around for a bit, see who’s going to bite, and then think the options over very carefully. Don’t worry, I have no doubt whatsoever that there _will_ be offers. But the reason I’m here is to make sure you get the best offer there is to get.”

“Thank you so much,” Jaskier said. “This means… a lot.”

Essi smiled, something small but genuine. “Of course,” she said. “Now, there’s the issue of your YouTube channel.”

“Yes,” Jaskier said. “I’m uploading a video tomorrow, I think.”

“Another demo?” Essi asked. “Because I have some thoughts about how often you should be doing that.”

“A cover, actually, but…”

“What kind of thoughts?” Essi interrupted. Jaskier nodded. “I think you should start hyping up songs before you drop them. Not always, but I noticed you often promote songs hours or even days after they drop. Your socials should focus on promoting your videos more often as is, but especially original songs. And we might think of polishing a few songs before you drop them.”

“What do you mean?” Jaskier asked.

“Well, mostly you’re posting very rough demos,” Essi noted. “Mostly just you and an instrument of some kind, most often a guitar. Sometimes you harmonize with yourself, or create a simple beat, but not much more. There’s nothing wrong with that as a small channel, but if we want to grow your platform at a steadier rate, you should consider producing your songs in more detail before uploading the video. Maybe add a bass or a piano, use a drum synthesizer, something of the sort.”

“Isn’t that what a label is for, though?” Jaskier asked, confused.

“Sure, partially,” Essi said. “But a label also markets, distributes, produces CDs and vinyls and merch, releases radio singles, et cetera. This doesn’t have to be fully professional, just a little more polished. At least think about it, will you?”

They nodded.

“Okay then,” Essi said. “I’m afraid I have a lunch appointment, so I’m going to let you go now, but feel free to contact me before you make a decision on this. And I’ll forward the information on the labels who are interested, so at the very least you can look up what kind of music they represent now.”

“Thanks,” Jaskier said, getting up. “Seriously. You’re doing so much for me.”

“No problem,” Essi said. “I believe in you.”

Outside Essi’s office, Jaskier found out who she was meeting for lunch.

“Yennefer,” they said, surprised. “I didn’t, uh, expect to see you here.”

Yennefer raised a brow. “I introduced _you_ to Essi, remember?”

They very much did. Jaskier swallowed and said, “Yes, of course. Uh, so you’re her lunch meeting?”

“Yes.”

Jaskier had rarely felt this awkward near another person.

Bile rose in their throat.

_Guilty, guilty, guilty –_

“Well, it was nice to see you,” Jaskier lied, and made to go, when Yennefer said –

“How’s Geralt been?”

Jaskier choke. “Uh. What do you mean?”

Yennefer rolled her eyes. “He’s been with you like, two or three times a week. He’s a little closed off about it all – well, everything, really – but you tend to be more talkative, so…”

“Right,” Jaskier said.

Yennefer raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

“Right,” Jaskier repeated. “Uh, it’s – he’s been good. You don’t mind that he’s gone so often?”

“No,” Yennefer said. “You make him happy. Even if it makes absolutely no sense. And he’s more relaxed now, which is… nice. That said, he’s also fucking exhausted all the time from work, so we haven’t really found time together over the past two weeks. Hence, me asking.”

Jaskier laughed nervously. “Yeah, of course, that makes sense. Well, he’s good.”

“You said,” Yennefer said, somewhat amused.

“Right, yeah,” Jaskier said. “Um, I’ll let you get to your meeting with Essi, yeah?”

“Sure,” Yennefer said. “Goodbye.”

“Bye,” Jaskier replied, but she had already walked passed them and through the doors, into Essi’s ridiculously fancy office, which Yennefer, in all her regal dignity, suited far more than they ever would.

Jaskier swallowed every bit of self-hatred they couldn’t help but feel, and reminded themselves that they had always thought cheating was on the cheater. It wasn’t their responsibility. No matter how dignified, majestic, or fucking incredible Yennefer was. It didn’t matter that she had helped them, that they probably owed their future success to Yennefer. It didn’t matter. Because it wasn’t on them.

 _Guilty_ , a voice repeated.

Jaskier couldn’t remember what they taught that evening; they couldn’t probably concentrate on editing their video; they couldn’t think of anything else.

This was a fucking terrible time to grow a conscience. Just fucking horrible. The very worst.

And they loved Geralt, so fucking much. So much more than they would have thought they were capable of.

But as the evening turned into night and the darkness overtook the apartment and they stared at a clock that said it was one, two, three am, they knew they had to.

They were going to end it.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unrelated to all of this, but this was a fuckin week, huh? I've learned more about the stock market than I ever wanted to, seriously.\  
> I'm also really grateful for all the positive reaction to _in which an entire university faculty becomes far too involved in Pankratz and Vengerberg's love life_. I never would have imagined that people would love it so much.  
> I had a complete writing block when it came to this chapter. It was originally a Yen chapter, and then I made it a Geralt chapter and I liked what I wrote but I got stuck again, so I just made it a dual perspective chapter, cause why the fuck not. Again, this is my fic, I'll do what I want. Still, I hope y'all liked it. And if you did - please leave a kudos and a comment, I live for that shit.  
> EDIT: I forgot to rec a fic! Today's rec is [Constellations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24018538/chapters/57785071), a soulmate au for these three in which there is a superstition that if you have two soulmates, one is going to be the love of your life and the other is going to be your nemesis. All in all it's not particularly long, and I obviously really recommend it.  
> Love,  
> JustGail


	6. We Should Probably Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the Yen chapter I promised like, three chapters ago.  
> Featuring an unbearable amount of italics.  
> I hope you enjoy it, since I wrote the whole thing in like an hour between one thirty am and two thirty am.  
> Listen, I wrote four pages of a five page paper that's due in a whole month, I feel like this is valid.  
> Anyway.  
> Enjoy.

It had been a bad day already.

The day was absolutely miserable. Yennefer had left the office for lunch, and mid-walk it started _pouring_ , even though it had been a sunny day up until then, and her entire body was soaked to the bone by the time she made it into the café, which then almost refused to serve her. When they _deigned_ to serve her, the food was bad, and the walk back to the office was worse, and she was doing all of this on basically no sleep because she had worked late into the night on this job she’d been doing for months.

But when she finally reached the office again, she found out Tissaia was promoted over her. And it wasn’t like Tissaia didn’t _deserve_ it, per se, but Yennefer had spent the last three months working her ass off on this _fucking_ merger and she would have at least wanted a _raise_.

At least it wasn’t _Fringilla_. Then she’d be truly mortified.

So when she came back to the apartment she shared with Geralt all she wanted was to whine, and be held by him, and eat some ice cream, and maybe fuck the pain away. Yeah. That sounded nice.

She had already taken out the ice cream when she heard the door open, and glanced out of the kitchen to see Geralt slumped by door, taking off his raincoat and shoes. “Hey,” she said. “You will not _believe_ the day I’ve had.”

“Hmm,” he said, not even looking at her, and headed straight to the bedroom.

Yennefer frowned. That was not a _good_ hmm. Wasn’t Geralt supposed to meet Jaskier this afternoon?

She followed him into their bedroom, ice cream left behind. She found him laying on the back, on his back, staring at the ceiling. He hadn’t even taken his shoes off. “Geralt,” she said, “tell me what’s wrong.”

She didn’t ask if there was something wrong. She didn’t need to.

“Nothing,” Geralt lied.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Yennefer told him. She sat down to his left and took his hand in hers. “Did something happen with Jaskier?”

“Mm,” Geralt said, which was as good as a confirmation.

“Are you ready to talk about it?”

Again, she didn’t ask if he _wanted_ to talk about it. Geralt was Geralt. He would never choose to talk about it. But she would force him to, eventually.

Maybe not tonight.

“They ended it,” Geralt said, and Yennefer wanted a lot of things – she had once wanted to be beautiful, and no matter how much pain it took, she got it; she wanted that promotion, and the raise and prestige that came with it, and no matter how much time it will take, she’ll get it; but Geralt’s happiness – that was something that she could want all she wanted, but she couldn’t do it _for_ him.

He was happy with Jaskier.

And no matter how much he hid behind the stony unfeeling persona, she could tell he was absolutely miserable right now.

She squeezed his hand twice.

He squeezed back.

“We’ll talk about it,” she promised him. “Tomorrow.”

They did not talk about it _tomorrow_.

Geralt was gone long before she even woke up, having a shift at the barn that required him to leave the house by five thirty in the gods-damn AM.

And even though she was passed over for promotion – in fact, because of that very fact – she still had _weeks_ to go on this fucking merger, and had to stay late to work on it.

By the time she got home, Geralt was out like a light – or at least, very convincingly faking it.

So she got ready for bed as quietly as she could – Geralt was a light sleeper, and tended to wake up and then not be able to get back to sleep – lay down next to him, and vowed to bring it up the next day.

Yennefer wasn’t stupid. She knew Geralt was avoiding her.

But the thing is, once again, their schedule was consistently inconsistent, making it incredibly difficult to find any time together, and by the time the week ended, Geralt was clearly going out with Renfri or Eskel and Lambert solely to avoid being in her presence and having a gods-damn heart to heart.

She loved him, she really did, but he was a coward, and if she could actually pin him down, she’d tell him that.

But since she couldn’t find out what happened between Geralt and Jaskier from Geralt…

*

At first they thought the knock on the door was just the pounding in their head.

Getting day drunk probably _wasn’t_ the best idea they’d ever had. Especially not since they were teaching today. But cancelling some classes wasn’t the worst they’d ever done over a heartbreak, so all in all, relatively tame.

They hadn’t even blacked out. Just went out with Priscilla, drank a _lot_ , cried a little, laughed a little at the absurdity of _them_ breaking off a relationship over the _other_ _party_ cheating, and then went home and crashed at approximately six PM.

Until the knocking on the door woke them up, that is.

They glanced at their phone. It was about nine thirty, and they had six missed calls and about three dozen messages, almost all from Yennefer. One was from a parent of one of their students; they’d deal with that later.

It was probably Yennefer at the door.

She had probably found out about the cheating.

Jaskier should probably let her in.

This whole moral growth thing was _exhausting_. They had done the right thing. They had let Geralt know they didn’t feel comfortable doing this anymore. They had told Geralt to go back to Yennefer and treat her right, treat her better. They’d said they still cared about Geralt, but this wasn’t enough for them.

They hadn’t thought Geralt would _tell_ Yennefer about the affair.

And they’d never say this to her face, but Yennefer terrified them, and they really didn’t want to deal with her anger, no matter how much she had a right to it, no matter how much Jaskier deserved it.

The knocking resumed with renewed vigor.

“Fuck, okay!” they yelled. “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

There was a glass of water next to their bed – a fantastic moment of foresight that drunk-Jaskier must have possessed – and they downed the whole thing despite the tangy taste of still water. They made sure they were wearing enough clothes to be decent. They were wearing a nice skirt and an incredibly cute crop top, which were more than appropriate for a happy hour drinking session with their best friend, but perhaps didn’t make the best attire for confronting Yennefer. Or letting her confront them.

They grabbed a sweater from the floor and hastily covered themselves and rushed to the door, where the knocking had only gotten more furious.

“Just a minute, fuck!” they said, scrambling for their keys. They hurried to unlock the door and found, to their complete lack of surprise, that it was Yennefer.

“We need to talk,” she said, pushing past them into the apartment.

Jaskier closed the door behind her. What were they going to say? That they _didn’t_ need to talk? Pretend they didn’t know why she was here?

They had half a mind to outright lie and tell Yennefer it was all Geralt’s fault, but they couldn’t do that to him. They were completely willing, the entire time.

So they just nodded and joined her in the living room.

Gods, she was glamorous. Completely at odds with Jaskier’s ancient hand-me-down furniture that they had once shared with Geralt, back when they could have him and not feel guilty about it.

They sat, and waited.

Yennefer seemed to be examining it all. They tried to see the room through her eyes: the water damage on the ceiling, the decade-old TV with an ancient computer hooked up to it, the sagging couch and even saggier armchair. It was nothing like the upscale apartment she shared with Geralt, with the brand new furniture and smart TV they barely used and a kitchen that was actually separate from the living room because there was enough floor space to do that; an apartment that you had to use two separate codes to get into, for the outside gate _and_ front door, and where the emergency stairs were actually a little hard to find and the elevators were fancy and really big.

Sometimes Jaskier felt incredibly small, when they visited that apartment. It felt too big for them. One day, they might live in one just like it. But not today. Today they had an ancient carpet and mismatched throw pillows and a bunch of tiny frogs on the windowsill they found in a tiny shop that wasn’t there two months later when they tried to visit it again. This was the life they had, and it fit exactly right.

Except for Geralt.

And Yennefer.

It’s possible they were too hungover for this.

*

Jaskier looked fucking terrible. Maybe she shouldn’t have come; maybe the half a dozen missed calls were a sign not to show. But she was here now, and she was going to have this talk, because Geralt wouldn’t, and she needed to – she needed to do _something_. Anything. And she couldn’t do it if she didn’t know what had even _happened_.

“We need to talk,” she said, “about what happened with Geralt.”

Jaskier sighed and rubbed their eyes. “Yeah, I know.” They sounded – so tired.

“He won’t _talk_ to me,” she told them, frustration leaking into her voice against her will. “And I don’t understand what happened. He was so excited to come see you – and then he came home, and – Jaskier, what the fuck happened?”

“How,” Jaskier asked, in a voice so small it almost broke her resolve. “How did he act? I didn’t want – “

“What?” Yennefer said impatiently. “You didn’t want to break his heart? Because you fucking did.”

Jaskier merely blinked at her, seemingly not knowing what to say.

“Are you drunk?” she accused.

“Hungover,” they responded. “Can you just – okay, honestly? I’m trying to read in between the lines here, and it’s… confusing.”

“What’s confusing?” Yennefer demanded. “He went to see you. Next thing I know, all I wanted was to have a nice evening – after a fucking terrible day, by the way – but he’s coming home _completely_ shut down, won’t talk to me, and I’ve barely seen him since! What _happened_?”

“I don’t understand,” they said, and to their credit, they truly looked baffled. “If Geralt hasn’t talked to you – why are you here?”

She rolled her eyes. “I already told you. Geralt said you had a date, and whatever happened on that date – “

“You _knew_?”

Yennefer stopped.

It was possible that Jaskier meant about the specific date. Like, they didn’t think Geralt had told her they were going to meet that day. Or even just that they didn’t expect her to understand that something bad had happened, although that would be a true insult to Jaskier’s faith in her relationship with Geralt.

But that wasn’t the kind of tone that Jaskier was using.

The longest moment of her life passed.

“Jaskier,” she said carefully, “what do you think I didn’t know?”

Jaskier looked like a deer in the headlights. “When did Geralt tell you about the affair?”

“ _Affair?_ ” Yennefer asked incredulously.

“Cheating on your significant other, last I checked,” Jaskier said, “could, in fact, be called an affair.”

“Geralt wasn’t _cheating_ ,” Yennefer said.

The deer in the headlights look was here to stay, apparently.

“ _What?_ ”

“Is that what you think of my relationship with Geralt?” she demanded. “That he would cheat on me?”

“Are you saying that he _wasn’t_?”

“No!”

“Then what the fuck was he doing sleeping with me?!”

Yennefer let out a string of curses that would make any sailor to blush. “That fucking man,” she muttered, “that idiotic fucking man. Did he ever actually _talk_ to you?”

“Uh,” Jaskier said. “No. We were – a little busy, actually.”

Yennefer wanted to scream. “I told him,” she said slowly, “that he could have you, if he wanted. Because he has feelings for you, and I’m not that selfish, even if I don’t exactly… get it. You thought it was cheating?!”

“I broke it off!” Jaskier said defensively.

“How Geralt tells it, you let people cheat with you all the time,” she said, even though it was probably beside the point.

“Yeah, well,” Jaskier said. “That wasn’t Geralt. That wasn’t you. Both of you deserve better. So.”

“That was almost decent,” she said.

“Thank you,” they replied. “I think. Did you mean it? When you said that you were okay with… us?”

She sighed. “Yes,” she said. “But – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – we should probably talk. All three of us.”

“Right,” Jaskier said. “So…”

“So we’ll fucking talk,” Yennefer told them, and then left, because she couldn’t stand to be in that apartment another second.

Even if Jaskier really had tried their best to do a decent thing, the fact that they willingly went along with it for as long as they did –

She shouldn’t have been surprised.

But still.

It hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was a chapter, eh?  
> There's still some angst in our future, and Yennefer and Jaskier's dynamic needs a _lot_ of developing, but I've got high hopes for these idiots.  
> Today's rec is [Immortality Hex Shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688818), a couple of fics in which Jaskier is cursed to be immortal. It's heavy on the angst, geraskier focused but still geraskiefer at the end of the day, and I've read it like, four times, it's really good.  
> My birthday's on Sunday. I'm going to be turning 23. Isn't that just, really weird? I mean, I first started publishing fanfiction when I was like, fifteen. It's been... a time.  
> Thank you so much for reading, and commenting, and kudosing, and for sometimes reading my really old fics that are low-key terrible and problematic af. I love you all.  
> JustGail


End file.
